Ken-chan's car blog

In case you need to replace windshield wipers in your nissan 240sx, the following information will help you identify the lengths of each wiper blade depending on the car model.

Nissan 240sx – S13 (1989-1993)
Driver side – 20″ (inches)
Passenger side – 20″ (inches)
Rear/Hatch – 20″ (inches)

Nissan 240sx – S14 (1995-1998)
Driver side – 21″ (inches)
Passenger side – 20″ (inches)

Here’s one idea how to do boost leak testing:
Hook up one end of you boost leak tester to the intercooler piping and the other end to the air compressor valve or pump. Pressurize the intercooler piping and use 5/8″ hose to listen in & pinpoint any air leaks. You can do boost leak testing on individual intercooler pipe pieces / blow-off-valves, etc. as well if you suspect they are not holding up to the desired pressure.

*** NOTE: Use safety goggles – pressurized piping + things lying around it become potential projectiles.

This is what I typically do:

1. With engine off, I usually remove coupler that connects intercooler piping to turbo, install my boost leak tester there.
2. Pressurize the whole system, prop open the gas pedal with a piece of wood or brick to ensure I get full pressure flow for testing any manifold leaks as well.
3. Obviously there will be some leakage depending on cam/valve positions where the engine stopped, so pressure may drop over time. What we are doing is
   listening to external air leaks around couplers, throttle body, manifold, piping, etc.
4. To aid in listening for the air leaks, grab a 5/8″ hose .. While your buddy or you keep pressurizing the piping to specific psi with hand valve, walk around & probe with the hose for leaks. If you hear a leak through the hose, look where the other end is pointing then turn it to figure out the exact spot of the leak.
   (Note: quiet pressurized air chamber with air compressor off makes sense – loud compressor working in the background does not since you won’t hear any air leaks).
5. Once you figured out the issue, solve the leak – if it’s piping, reweld it, if it’s hose coupler, tighten it up, etc. then retest until the pressure stops dropping fast.

That was my brief idea on boost leak testing. Now, let’s make the tester. Here’s what you’ll need:

• A gauge to measure pressure that you’ve built up in the intercooler piping (or you can use the one inside your car if you have it mounted already).
• Air compressor that you can turn on / off or buddy with a footpump to pressurize the piping up to specific pressure you want to test for. If it is an air compressor, make sure that you have quick on/off switch handy to ensure you do not over pressurize the piping beyond what you are testing for OR you will definitely find a leak or make a new one fast. I test my piping to 22 psi since at most I am peaking 17 psi. If I upgrade bunch of things and my requirements change, I’ll have to raise the pressure level for testing as well.

After making few dual gauge pods a while ago, I ended up with 2 1/16″ wooden cylinders that came out after the cutting was done. My intercooler piping on the hot side is 2″ so putting the 2″ intercooler coupler fits well over the wooden cylinder – just needed to clean up the edges a bit and wholla.

Notice the X in the middle of the wooden cylinder. It is the X used to mark the gauge center – I didn’t even have to drill the center since the cutout saw drill did it for me when I was making the gauge. I hammered in a 2 way barbed fitting so that I can attach vacuum hose for pressurizing the tester. I did clean the center a bit to make sure I won’t dump some wooden pieces in the piping, but it was a win-win situation: make gauge pod, reuse pieces to make a boost leak tester all in one shot.

We have another DIY article based on something that happened to my older backup computer. Between loose wiring, dirt and curious fingers – the fan lost 2 blades and caused the whole PC case to wobble shaking the video card out of agp port causing crashes.

The cost of this DIY is $0 assuming you have the right tools, dead power supply (with a working 12 volt fan) and some electrical / soldering experience. Please note several things:

• Unplug the power supply you will take apart from the outlet!
• Power supplies contain capacitors which can still contain enough charge over time to give you a good jolt if you don’t pay attention while touching terminals. Don’t touch the terminals by hand – use isolated wire cutters.

My backup PC uses an old sempron 2500+ with 3.2″ length & width heatsink, so the power supply 12 volt fan is just slightly bigger than the stock cpu fan I had on there originally – more cooling is better Below is the picture of the fan I have currently on there (also an upgrade however it’s dirty & abused).

After removing the fan & heatsink from the cpu – I’ve thoroughly blown out all the dirt using air compressor. I then removed the old damaged fan from the heat sink. Here is a fan I took out from another power supply just to give you an idea that most power supplies come with similar size fans. Test your fan with 12 volt voltage source (any 12 volt power supply will do or use the computer power supply).

Here is what we will do – find a way to attach the next fan on top of the existing heat sink. Now you have 2 choices – use it in “push” (push colder air from top onto the cpu heatsink) or “pull” (pull hot air from the heatsink, which gets replaced with colder air around it) configuration. I chose the “push” configuration since I think it has some advantages.

As you can see – it would take a bit more work to make a bracket so that we could use screws to hold the fan to the sink. We’ll have another way to do it which is equally reliable.

If you look closely, you will notice that the sink fan has small hook ledge where the factory bracket was held. The issue is that you cannot just push the fan into the holding ledge or will be held too close against the sink.

So I used a small metal saw to create 2 ledges on the opposite sides of the fan so that it would be held in place above the heat sink.

Now let’s line them up – you may need to gently expand the heat sink to fit your new fan over the center of it – in my case it didn’t take much time to do this with the fans being similar.

You can see the clearance from the heatsink that we have thanks to the ridges we created. Once you snap it in – should be very stirty – to give you an idea – you need screw driver and some effort to take out again. If it is loose – bend the sides of the heatsink so that it grabs well.

This is what it looks like from the side. You can see my goof up when making the first notch

Now we need to test to make sure the wiring we transferred from the old fan still works. Note that I am not using the 3rd wire (blue) in this case (which is the rpm measurement that my new fan doesn’t have).

Temporarily wire the power wires for the test but keep them separated when you plug it in. You can use isolation on the wires as well to prevent them contacting each other.

Quick test to ensure the fan positive and negative follows the standard color code. What we are looking for is to check whether air is being push onto the heatsink & out to the sides (“push” configuration). Keep wires separated for the test & don’t keep the computer on too long since CPU doesn’t have a way to cool itself.

Ok, test went as expected. Now let’s solder the wires from the new fan to the old connector. I am using shrink tubing to cover the exposed area of the wires but you can use electrical tape instead – shrink tubing helps to keep moisture out to lessen the chance of contact & a short circuit.

If you are using shrink tubing, put it on the wires before you solder…

After soldering, place the shrink tubing over the soldered areas & “shrink” them using heat…

Now add heat paste between the sink & cpu, mount your fan / heatsink combo back in place & hook it up.

Now enjoy your new found quiet fan. I noticed that after blowing out the dust, doing upgrading the fan & adding heatpaste, my cpu temperature dropped 7 degrees. It’s been running for over 12 hours with slight overclock without issues.

*** Short update: system works great over 48 hours later while overclocked.. Temperature of CPU still 7 degrees below & no crashes.

Oh yeah – Merry Christmas!!!

Some new DIY projects…

Please check out this link to view the diy guide:

http://www.makemilk.com/pic_hosting/s1495/diy/mc505_potentiometer_repair/

A short tune after repair with mc-505, roland xp50 and korg x3.

korg x3: elec guitar

roland xp50: piano, strings

roland mc505: everything else

MC505.mp3 a short tune test if mc505 works

Some people may argue that a rebuilt turbo will fail within weeks, etc.  I’ve run mine for over a year now.  I agree – new turbo is much more fine tuned and with new parts it may run longer given same type of abuse.  This article won’t go into debates about new / used turbos, running coolant lines or not – do your own research and decide on your own setup.   What this article will do is show you how to rebuild your basic journal-bearing t25 turbo (t25 A/R .80 M24).  Please note that many of the smaller journal turbos can be rebuilt in a similar way…

Having said that… Enjoy…

http://www.makemilk.com/pic_hosting/s1495/diy/t25_rebuild/

You can make custom soft gaskets really easy and save quite a lot of money.  By “soft gaskets”, I am referring to gaskets that are not do not include steel gaskets such as the ones used for exhaust, etc.  Soft gaskets can be used to provide a good seal against oil and air leaks.  I have been making custom soft gaskets for my turbo projects for 2 years now without leak issues, etc.  Just make sure when you purchase gasket sheets, you use the right gasket material for the specific job it was designed for – use oil type of gasket when you will be making gasket for the oil return line for your turbo – I found that coating the finished gasket with slight layer rtv sealant helps to give it rubbery characteristic which should make it more resistant to moisture.

Here are some DIY gasket pictures for a T25:

Let’s get started:

1. Take piece of regular photocopier / printer paper.

2. Put the part into a vice or on a stable surface.  Use pencil to trace the shape of the flange through the paper.

3. Cut the shape you just drew and punch out / cut out the bolt holes.  Basically we’re making a gasket template on paper so we can trace it onto gasket material.

4. Trace out the shape on the gasket using the template you just made.  Cut the gasket material to the shape you traced on it – hole punches are very useful to get the bolt hole sizes right instead of having to mess around using exacto knife or cookie cutters, but you can do it either way.

5. Put it on the flange itself to see how it sits.  You can gently file or cut it to fit the flange exactly – this way it will not reduce air flow and will last without tearing, etc.  Make sure you don’t cause any damage to the actual flange.  Afterwards – clean up any dust that accumulates from the trimming of the gasket (air compressor / cloth / visual spot check come in handy).

6. Here is how our new gasket looks back on the turbo…

Ok some more examples..

T25 inlet / outlet gaskets…

KA24DE IACV gasket…

* Point of interest: if you are putting your IACV back on the manifold that still sits on the motor, it’s good to use dental floss or string to hold the gasket & screws together until you start to tighten them on the back of the manifold.  It saves a lot of time and headaches resulting from falling gasket / screws.  Once you start tightening, pull on the string so it unwinds and you’re done.  This works great in places where you have limited access with one hand.

Here is an example of a pod I made for a friend. 

After measuring & marking the gauge circle cuts on the wood, using hole cut outs I cut out 2 1/16″ holes, spray-protected the pod with moisture resistant wood varnish. 

Example of hole cutout set I used to make the gauge pod – click here to see how the remaining cut 2 1/16″ wood pieces were reused in making a boost leak tester

Afterwards I lined inside of the gauge-holes with thin layer of padding tape to ensure gauges would hold firmly without being crushed by expanding wood if it ever gets moist (it also gives it some room to expand so you can still pull out the gauge if you twist it but it sits firmly inside without bouncing around).  Afterwards, I sanded the edges on belt sander to give it smoother, rounder look in case my friend would decide to mount it externally somewhere.  I am not so creative – it’s mostly about function & durability but you could make it round, etc.

Here’s a finished wooden gauge pod I’ve been using for the past 4 years:

BEST PART OF THIS DIY is that you can:

• Color it any way you want.
• Mount it any way you want.  It can also be made for exact fitment under your stereo, etc.  I am currently using a wooden 3-gauge pod in my car that I made back in 2006 that sits under the cd player – no issues with shaking, rattling, fading, etc.
• If you choose oak or other solid wood – it’ll be more durable than the cheap plastic stuff you can get online.  And it’s still cheap to make – provided you have the basic tools.
• You can create custom wiring layout with fuses and brackets to make swapping gauges and installation on any car real easy.

This page shows my T25 rebuild assuming you took the turbo apart (you can just see how it’s being put on and reverse the steps)…

http://www.makemilk.com/pic_hosting/s1495/diy/t25_rebuild/

Valve cover painting is one of my favorite diy’s.  Granted it’s nothing fancy like powder coating, it still adds something cool to the unique setup.  I try to make each valve cover bit different from the other.

To clean, prepare & paint a valve cover expect to spend good 7-8 hours of mostly wait time and about 1.5-2 hours of actual work… Ensure you get about 3 coats of paint with some breaks between for each stage.

Let’s start…

1. Clean up the valve cover using degreaser, 400 grit paper, steel brush if needed – avoid creating scratches.

Afterwards wash degreaser off with water, dry it or blow out with air gun.  Tape off the cover top openings to prevent overspray from getting in (follow the shape of the oil cap).

2. Use vaseline to mark off areas you don’t want painted, such as lettering.

3. Use filler/primer to spray the cover – hopefully wet-sandable – if you spot uneven surfaces, use wet sandpaper to smooth it out. If you can’t find filler-primer combo, extra oversprays with some time out can help to make surface even. Afterwards let it dry.
 

4. Spray it with your high-temperature favorite color – in this case I chose orangy-red (lol tang? I am not good with color naming).

5. For the 3d feel / effect, I used mesh – ensure it’s tight (can use elastics) to give you good spread out pattern.

6. Overspray with another color – this time choose a darker color so that when you remove the mesh, the net effect will create lighter mesh effect.

7. After spraying few layers, leave it for a while with the mesh on.. once it hardens, gently peel the mesh away from surface – you will see the 3d effect and also bottom color will now show up as a grid.

8. Have a favorite sticker you would like to embed into your valve cover? Ensure it is a sticker with a shape – as the shape will transfer to the cover. Gently stick it on.. you can put very little bit of vaseline on the back of the sticker for easy removal. Just ensure that vaseline doesn’t spread over any surface areas or paint won’t grip there.

9. For this step, I’ve decided to create an effect of dark lettering on light background. I’ve measured out and created a spray rectangle over the lettering & sprayed 3 layers (with some time between) over the stickers and anything in that rectangle.

10. Now using exacto knife.. gently peel away the letter stickers..
As for nissan lettering.. Use qtip to rub off the paint – since the vaseline is below the paint, the paint will simply drop off the areas where you applied vaseline.. Use small paint brush to finish off the edges around lettering – it will remove the excess pieces you may have missed.

I found as an added protection – clear coat helps and surprisingly stands temperature well – spray 2-3 times (again with dry time between) – it will add more protection to the paint.

Here is the big shot for upclose…

Click here

And here is another valve cover done using similar but slightly different techniques.

And here they are for comparison…

Click here

And one more gloss-black for the new engine build…

Enjoy!

How to use relays inside your car…